An Eclectic Journal of Opinion, History, Poetry and General Bloviating

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

A Goyish Unitarian Take on Yom Kippur

When I posted a version
of the following poem last year on Yom Kippur
it was one of the least read entries of the season.Which is understandable.My poetry posts are as attractive as fish
guts rotting in the sun.And this one
didn’t even have the virtue of being short enough to fit on a business card.To top it all off my Jewish friends and readers, who might theoretically have the
greatest interest were busy, well, atoning, on the High Holy Day.The least
likely day out of the entire year to find them reading blogs or skimming
Facebook for links.

This entry was inspired
not only by my genuine admiration for the tradition, but by an ongoing
controversy in my own Unitarian
Universalist faith.For many years
UUs have gone blithely on incorporating snatches of prayers, ritual, and
tradition from other religions into our own worship.We do it mostly in good faith claiming “The living
tradition which we share draws from many sources…”

But lately we have
taken grief from Native Americans
for adopting willy-nilly rituals and prayers which we don’t fully understand
and take out of context, many of which, frankly, turned out to be New Age touchy-feely faux
traditions.Or from the fact that maybe
one of the last places where Kwanza is
widely celebrated is in almost all-white UU Sunday Schools.

Being UU’s, many of us
were stung that our well meaning gestures were not gratefully accepted as a
sort of homage.But others busily set
themselves up to the task of scouring the scourge of cultural appropriation from our midst, preferably with a judicious
dollop of self-flagellation with knotted whips—oops! Stole that one from 4th Century monks…No, what they did was
form committees and commissions to issue long, high minded reports to be
translated into deep retreats, seminary
training amended for proper sensitivity, and scolding’s by monitors who detect
insufficient rigor in rooting out the offense at Assemblies and meetings.

In that spirit I offer
you my poem.Angry denunciations and
heresy trial to follow…

1 comment:

Thanks for this, Patrick ~ how did you know it's just what I was looking for first thing this morning? I will be sharing... and probably have to do a bit of atoning of my own, especially from culturally Jewish family members and from Jewish fb Friends. But it's all worth it, it's that good!